The Maris Review, vol 21

It’s not new that successful books are copied many times over to try to capitalize on a trend, like how we saw a zillion sadistic billionaire romance novels post- 50 Shades of Grey. But still...

What I read this week

Carrie Carolyn Coco: My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable by Sarah Gerard

Books like this are so hard to pull off: true crime that centers the victim, that honors the victim’s loved ones, that creates a cohesive narrative out of a tragedy in a way that’s compelling but not salacious. Novelist and essayist Sarah Gerard has done it: Carrie Carolyn Coco is a lovely tribute to her friend Carolyn Bush, who was murdered by her roommate in her Ridgewood apartment in 2016, at the age of 26.

Through Sarah’s careful reporting we learn about who Carolyn was: what she was reading and listening to (a lot), what she hoped to be (a writer), how her relationships were complicated, and how she was a wild bunch of contradictions, as so many of us are in our twenties. She was extremely bright and pretentious and worldly and naive and petty and a thousand different other things all at once.

Sarah also tells us about the perpetrator, and you can see her struggle with how to tell the story in a way that sheds some light on a crime that doesn’t really make sense at all. She honors her friend with narrative grace, while skillfully revealing facts about the murder without too much commentary, creating a court room drama with heat and suspense that allows us to come to our own conclusions. Some violence is entirely senseless, and yet the conditions under which it emerges point to larger systemic problems, specifically the inequities of the American justice system. Sarah also convincingly describes how nepotism and sexism and classism at Bard College, the school that both the murderer and the victim attended, has a history of leading to violence.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Part 1, I’m only halfway through!)

A few weeks ago I had just turned in the second draft of my book and was looking for something to read that would be epic, all-consuming. My friends at Simon & Schuster had just happened to send me a copy of the 2010 edition of Lonesome Dove only days before, so I knew it was time.

I will write something a little more comprehensive when I’ve finished all 858 pages, but here’s an initial thought: I started the novel from page one. Which means that I started with the two-page preface to his beloved novel that Larry McMurtry wrote in 2010. Which means that in the space of two pages, the book was entirely spoiled for me! How?? I understand that big plot reveals are secondary to character development and setting and overall vibes in this Western that even people who don’t usually enjoy Westerns have come to proselytize as The Greatest Novel Ever Written, but still, a warning would have been nice!

More soon.

On Holocaust Beach Reads

A few summers ago I noticed the proliferation of a certain kind of book that I decided to call the Holocaust Beach Read: it’s a novel or micro-history book marketed as inspirational and important, yet light enough to take on vacation. The HBR usually features on its cover the back of a woman in shabby clothes looking off into the distance as if she were contemplating how all of the evil in the world is tempered by love and acts of heroism. Some HBRs are written by Jewish people, some are not. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is the urtext of Holocaust beach reads, an internationally bestselling novel with marketing copy that declares it “an unforgettable love story in the midst of atrocity.”

When I was editing the books section at Vulture, I had commissioned genius critic Ilana Masad to try to make sense of the trend through a combination of literary analysis and reporting, but we never got to run it. (the piece is great, if anyone commissioning editors want to give it another try!).

It’s nothing new that successful books are copied many times over to try to capitalize on the trend, like how we saw a zillion sadistic billionaire romance novels post- Fifty Shades of Grey. This is no different. But still, the titles below, all of which are self-published as opposed to the ones above that were released by major publishers, are trauma porn at it’s dingiest.

They’re not quite as, uh, hot right now as they were a few years ago, but I’ve been thinking a lot about Holocaust Beach Reads lately in the context of the October 7 anniversary books that will be published in the coming weeks.

There is so much to mourn. October 7 was a tragedy that begot many other tragedies. But if the fetishization of Jewish pain for entertainment (HBRs) was bad enough, then the fetishization of Jewish pain (October 7) to justify how US-backed Israel has been killing and maiming and displacing tens of thousands of Palestinian people in retribution for that pain, is simply unconscionable.

If you’re looking for a way to learn more about writing and also help people who desperately need it, take a look at Workshops for Gaza.

Anyhow…

New releases, 9/10

Dear Dickhead by Virginie Despentes, translated by Frank Wynne

From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire by Sarah Jaffe

Quarterlife by Devika Rege

Good Night, Sleep Tight by Brian Evenson

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

Still Life by Katherine Packert Burke

First in the Family: A Story of Survival, Recovery, and the American Dream by Jessica Hoppe

Two-Step Devil by Jamie Quatro

Band People: Life and Work in Popular Music by Franz Nicolai

Some Snotty Thoughts on NaNoWriMo